Why do you need my credit history?

Insurance companies use many factors to underwrite an insurance policy. In addition to factors like age, marital status, driving record and type of vehicle, many insurance companies, including Progressive, use credit information to evaluate a consumer's financial responsibility.

Insurance companies have found a strong correlation between financial responsibility and insurance losses. The credit information that we review focuses primarily on bill-paying behavior, not credit-worthiness. Using credit information allows us to assess risk more accurately.

We will not see your actual credit report during the underwriting process. The information will be ordered through an automated system and interpreted by our quoting system in the form of an insurance credit "score." The score will then be used in our underwriting process. When we use credit information as an underwriting tool, we are only concerned with the risk grouping into which a consumer falls, which will ultimately influence the consumer's rate.

No. The inquiry from Progressive will appear on your credit report as an insurance inquiry. Insurance inquiries are only reported to you, so they will not be included in credit score calculations by other parties.